Bring on the Aliens
Why uncertainty isn't always something to fear
I was talking with a good friend recently about the woeful state of the world. Wars, inflation, corrupt leaders. The usual.
We were thinking out loud about where it’s all heading. Will humanity once again manage to pull itself back from the brink? We talked about ways we, as a species, might fix things. We couldn’t really settle on any.
Then, at one point, my friend says: “Or we just wait for the aliens to come and save us.”
I laughed at first. At the sheer absurdity of it. But then I stopped and actually thought about it for a second.
And... yeah. Maybe.
I hope it doesn’t come to that; I’d rather we save ourselves. But implausible as alien salvation sounds, it’s not impossible. Ask almost any astrophysicist—Neil deGrasse Tyson, say—and they’ll tell you they’re fairly convinced there’s other life out there. There are more than 100 billion galaxies. The odds favour life existing somewhere over it not. Whether that life is advanced enough to care about us, or to do anything about our situation is another matter entirely. Unlikely things happen all the time.
And if investing and Buddhism have taught me anything, it’s this: We can count on uncertainty.
Take this year. None of the forecasters had a major Middle East conflict disrupting energy markets on their cards, and yet within days energy prices were spiking and markets were lurching.
And uncertainty cuts the other way, too. Those same markets, written off in the panic, had clawed back most of their losses within months, some pushing to new highs. The surprises aren’t only the bad ones.
So maybe the aliens are coming to rescue us. Or maybe something just as unlikely — and just as good — is about to happen.
This is scary, of course. Uncertainty rattles us to the core. It keeps us up at night. Our human brain, desperately trying to keep us alive, veers strongly toward the negative possibilities, the threats. It’s almost our default to assume things are only going to get worse. Ever-widening wealth inequality. Social division. Fear. Hate.
But sometimes unexpected developments are good. My son landing in my life. Moving clear across the continent, in the middle of a pandemic, to take care of an ailing loved one—and finding a sense of belonging like I’ve never known before. Getting a free cannoli from the Italian market right before closing time.
Turning Toward the World
I’m not a blind optimist. I’m not about to hold my breath for salvation. But in my darker moments, the thought that something good might be coming does give me a little comfort.
And if I can hold onto even a grain of that — if I can be just a little more okay with not knowing — then I think I can be more useful to the people in my life, and to the world in general.
Anxiety and dread make us turn inward and away from each other. We do it to protect ourselves, not out of selfishness. When I find myself doom-scrolling, my brain’s not wallowing in misery, but it’s actively scanning for incoming threats to gird myself against.
Hope, or at least finding some peace with uncertainty, allows us to step out of our heads and turn toward the world around us.
Even if we’re pinning our hopes on aliens. That half-serious comment from my friend jogged me out of a doom spiral and prompted me to write this article to connect with you, dear reader.
So, let’s try to make some peace with uncertainty. Let’s remind ourselves that surprises aren’t always bad.
Things seem like they’re going down the toilet. But maybe the alien cavalry are on their way to our rescue.
- The Buddh-ish Investor
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Take home points
The same unpredictability that blindsides us with wars and market crashes can just as easily surprise us in good ways.
Anxiety turns us inward to protect ourselves. We turn outwards, toward the people in our lives, when we make even a little peace with not-knowing.
If you’re looking for more
Tim Urban’s The Fermi Paradox: if the universe should be full of aliens, why the deafening silence? A fun rabbit hole.
A pleasant surprise courtesy of the radio the other day:
Klaatu barada nikto. Which might be translated as, “Embrace uncertainty, because it ain’t going away.”